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I am sure you have heard it said, "don't settle for second best". Sounds crazy but I recently realised that we do ourselves and those around us a disservice even when we settle for ...'the best'. Let me explain...

I have recently had coffee with a very close friend who is the pastor of an amazing Church and the national leader for the Church movement I attend. He is incredibly inspirational and I really value the opportunities I get to chew the fat with him in the area of leadership. At this recent meeting he mentioned a couple of times about his desire to develop his Church into the best Church in the city. ...as usual I found this to be aspirational and inspirational!

Later that day I really got thinking about the possibility that in aspiring to be the best church in the city he might be limiting it's developmental potential. Let me explain through the world of sport.

To be the best team on any given day you do not have to be amazing, infact you do not even have to be good -you only have to be better than the other team! Your team could play its worst game of the season but still go home champions, so long as the other team plays worse than yours. Do this often enough on the right days and just like that you are the champions, the best team! Your team is not necessarily amazing, but at least you are the best.

You see, striving for the best can come at the expense of reaching your potential. It is odd to think that the world thought it impossible to break the sound barrier, till one day someone did! Or even in athletics, where for the longest time it was considered impossible to run a sub four minute mile until Roger Banister did so in 1954, and further more New Zealand’s own John Walker went on to run a sub 3:50 mile completing more than 130 sub four minute miles in his career. Now a days running a sub four minute mile is the norn at the highest level.

Furthermore, before I was born only one person was recognised as having run 100 metres in less than 10 seconds. Since then it is an expectation at major athletics events that the finals will be ran in less than 10 seconds.

In motorcross, till 2009 nobody on record had ever attempted and landed a double backflip on their motorbike…till Cam Sinclair came along. Now, like the sub four minute mile to the sub ten second 100m, the double backflip is a common occurrence at all major moto cross events

The point is, was it ever impossible to break the sound barrier, run a mile in less than four minutes, complete 100m in less than 10 seconds or do a double back flip on a motorbike? I don’t think so but we were limited by what other athletes were achieving and by was was considered possible in that day.

Next time you aspire to be THE best, let it simply be an intermediate step to becoming your best through the process of continual improvement.

@lostarefound

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